'90s: It's a Med Med Med Med World

It seems like only yesterday, but really, it wasn't. Case in
point: Is "bare midriff" still part of your fashion
vocabulary? Are you still pulling for Ross and Rachel? What about
day-trading in your dot-com cubicle? We didn't think
so.

While all of those things are "so
'90s," there is at least one trend from that decade that has
endured: our deep interest in food, particularly handcrafted
ingredients and tradition-steeped cuisines of the Mediterranean.
We spent a year in Provence with Peter Mayle, and we basked under
the Tuscan sun with Frances Mayes. We planted lavender, rosemary,
and grapevines in our gardens and learned about prosciutto, real
Parmesan, and extra-virgin olive oil. They knew how to do it right
in the Mediterranean, and we wanted to learn.

And
there was more to the Med than France and Italy: There was Spain,
Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, and Morocco; Serrano ham; Kalamata
olives; falafel; harissa; and couscous.

All of which made us want to cook. Dinner parties in the '90s were
about showing off the quality and provenance of ingredients: an
extra-virgin olive oil from your favorite agriturismo
in Umbria, recipes from your cooking-school vacation in Greece,
melons from the local market that were almost as good as
Provençal Cavaillons. And the parties were also about
adopting a Mediterranean way of life: There's no better way to
spend an afternoon than at a table under an olive tree with your
closest friends and your favorite wine.

Today, our
appreciation of lovingly grown and respectfully prepared
ingredients has blossomed into an obsession with farmers' markets
and, most recently, the artisanal food movement  both
providing us with the most exciting and highest-quality
ingredients we've ever had to play with. Take a trip to your
favorite market and take a look at this Moroccan-inflected menu.
Its roots may be in the '90s, but it's "so today."